Hello, welcome to the forums. The book Alcoholics Anonymous calls the peculiar mental twist that precedes that first drink. As you said, we come up with some excuse, justification, reason that a drink is needed to comfort us. Then we end up drinking lot more than we originally planned. We are mentally and bodily impacted. We are restless irritable and disconteded, some are bored anxious when not drinking. And that leads us back into that insidious first drink. Thats the vicious cycle of alcoholism and drug addiction.